WASHINGTON — War, terrorism, economic struggles — such is life in the Oval Office for President
Barack Obama.

Yet in his few quiet moments, the president seeks not to escape to the delicious backstabbing of
the
Real Housewives or the frivolity of the singing teens on
Glee. By his own accounts, Obama has been drawn in his spare time to shows such as HBO’s
Game of Thrones and
Boardwalk Empire — the kind of heavy, darkly rendered television that echoes the sadness
and strife that make up so much of his workday.

Recently, when Obama retreated to the White House residence after a long day on the other end of
the colonnade, he was working his way through the DVD boxed set of
Breaking Bad, the award-winning AMC drama about a drug-dealing high-school teacher. (The
show recently ended after five seasons, but the president is way behind.)

Friends say Obama is also keenly awaiting the new season of the Netflix series
House of Cards (Feb. 14), which starkly depicts a dysfunctional Washington. At a meeting
of technology executives in December, Obama jokingly lamented his own inability to maneuver the
halls of Congress in the way that Kevin Spacey’s character, Frank Underwood, does.

“I wish things were that ruthlessly efficient,” Obama was overheard telling Reed Hastings, the
Netflix CEO, who invited the president to do a cameo on the show.

It might be a fool’s errand to psychoanalyze anyone — let alone a sitting president — based only
on the books he reads or the music he listens to or the TV shows he watches.

Ronald Reagan, a former actor, once offered to appear on his favorite show: the sitcom
Family Ties. (His offer was rejected.) George W. Bush was said to not be a particular fan
of television, but he made exceptions for A&E’s
Biography and a variety of sports programs.

But, for Obama,
Breaking Bad and
House of Cards are hardly the exceptions to what has become a clear pattern. Obama is also
a devotee of Showtime’s
Homeland, which offers an eerily familiar mirror to the president’s own foreign-policy
adventures: terrorism, Iranian nuclear negotiations, drone strikes and an intelligence agency
struggling for legitimacy with Congress and the American people.

The list of heavies continues: Obama has told people he is a big fan of
Game of Thrones, a brutal imagining of the wars in medieval Europe; he has raved about
Boardwalk Empire and the PBS series
Downton Abbey, two period dramas that document the angst and difficulties people faced
during those times.

Then there is HBO’s
The Wire, which Obama has repeatedly called one of the “greatest shows of all time.” The
drama depicted the poverty-stricken projects in Baltimore and documented the drug war between
worn-out cops and the city’s African-American residents.

Obama once admitted to
People magazine that he is “a little darker” in his TV habits than the rest of his
family.